Monday, 21 January

22:47

Last month Chinese students at Columbia University in New York
City were targeted by
racist vandals who ripped the name tags bearing their Chinese
names off dorm doors. So they made a video about what their Chinese
name means to them. They explain how it went viral. Filmed by Max
Toomey and edited by Joshua Lim.

The stoking of anti-Chinese xenophobia over the past two years
was invoked to justify the passage of draconian foreign
interference laws by the federal Coalition government and the Labor
Party opposition last June.

The legislation potentially criminalises
internationally-coordinated political activity. Its passage
followed unsubstantiated claims from the media and political
establishment that the activities of Chinese businessmen, students
and community organisations were part of a sinister plot hatched in
Beijing. Australian politicians and corporate figures with
interests in China have similarly been accused of advancing the
interests of the Chinese regime.

The article in the Australian indicates that having
secured the passage of the foreign interference laws, sections of
the ruling elite are anxious for them to be tested out.

Does PPIPA deliver the goods? After 21 years, I tend to
wonder: do the good people of NSW actually enjoy a greater degree
of privacy protection than, say, their cousins in WA who by
contrast have no equivalent privacy law covering their state
government agencies, local councils or public universities?

I have reason to doubt it. Several reasons, in fact.
There are the problems with disturbing loopholes in the
legislation, which I have
written about before; details like the fact that the maximum
compensation payable to a person who has suffered significant harm
is set
too low and hasnt been increased in 21 years; and the continued
under-resourcing of the NSW Privacy Commissioners office.

But today I am more concerned about a really fundamental
question. Given PPIPA is recognised has having both a
beneficial and a normative
purpose in other words, the legislation as drafted was intended to
set
new standards across the public sector, to the benefit of
individuals privacy is it working?

Agencies not embracing Privacy by Design

For years, advocates of the idea of Privacy by Design have
asserted that it is better to
design privacy in from the start, and to have pro-privacy
settings as the default, than to try and retro-fit a system
later.

The on-going Opal Card system design is the perfect illustration
of the wisdom of that theory. Over some years, privacy
advocate Nigel Waters argued that the collection of data about his
travel history his physical movements was in breach of the
collection limitation principle (known in other jurisdictions
as data minimisation), IPP 1, because knowing information about his
movements as a passenger was not reaso...

18:03

Six people have been charged after Australian authorities
uncovered a multi-million-dollar crime syndicate stealing baby
formula and vitamins from major retailers across Sydney for
shipment to China, police said Monday.

Four members of one family and two other men have been arrested
and charged over the organised criminal group that New South Wales
Police believe has operated for several years.

Were thinking this is quite an expansive criminal group that was
exploiting an overseas market at the disadvantage of the Australian
public, NSW Police Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty told
reporters in Sydney.

Premium baby milk
formula, vitamins and honey from Australia are highly sought after
in Ch...

17:25

One of our New Years Resolutions is to encourage the progressive
and radical movements on the Australian continent to get better at
digital privacy and security essentially putting less of ourselves
out into the interwebs for our opposition for free.

Government and private companies collect data on activists this
has been demonstrated many times over the years. Activists working
against fossil fuels are an example of people that have been
targeted innocuous peaceful activities have been reported on by
expensive
contractors, we have been
spied on, had groups infiltrated by police and
corporate spies. In the UK, long term undercover policing
resulted in women having
long term relationships and even children with police spies.
Whilst we are not aware of such extreme cases in Australia, it is
not something to take lightly, but its also not something that
should stop us from acting for social and environmental
justice.

The most successfully disruptive aspect of surveillance is
encouraging paranoia and making life hard for activists, so dont
let em stop you you can be the proud owner of an ASIO file along
with so many other awesome folk. Guaranteed every high profile
activist you have looked up to was probably monitored by the
government!

So lets get the new year off to some good security habits. Here
is a quick rundown of some tools that will assist your
communications to be more secure. The catch nothing is fool proof,
but getting into good habits, makes for a healthier group
culture.

What is security
culture simply a set of practices that limits the ability for
government or opponents to find out more information about you and
interfere with or monitor your group. Weve given you some tools to
minimise this.

Tech is ever evolving but these are top picks for
2019

16:39

I don't see how Ms Faehrmann can continue in her job as a NSW
Legislator after so stridently and publicly admitting to breaking
the law - without saying when and where she did it. Her attempt to
avoid the specific questions do her no credit - she comes across
as...

15:25

The unprecedented Baaka/Darling River fish kill which
claimed more than one million fish earlier this month including
countless giant Murray Cod estimated to be decades old was caused
by mismanagement of the Menindee Lakes system, with drought playing
only a minor part, according to one of the nations top research
think-tanks.

On January 7, the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI)
confirmed more than a million fish had died in a small stretch of
the Lower Darling region, around the Menindee Lakes system. DPI
blamed the ongoing drought, and a cold snap which killed toxic
blue-green algae. DPI says a massive bacterial bloom feeding on the
algae caused oxygen levels in the water to drop, leading to the
fish kill.

But according to a report produced by The Australian Institute a
Canberra-based research organisation the fish kill simply came down
to poor water management by the NSW Government, with the lakes
system drained twice in recent years, while inflows to the system
were inadequate.

Key findings of the report

Maryanne Slattery, a Senior Water Researcher at The Australia
Institute (TAI) argues that the Menindee Lakes were drained in
2016-17 at a time when downstream areas did not need water.

South Australia was experiencing flooding and all Murray
irrigation demand was met, The TAI writes.

The Lakes were drained by the Murray Darling Basin Authority
(MDBA), which is directed by the state governments.

The water level in the Lakes is not being replenished by regular
smaller flows. While large floods still reach Menindee, regular
small-medium flows have decreased dramatically.

A graph included in the report reveals that the Menindee Lakes
system has only been emptied twice in recent decades once in 2003,
at the height of the Millennium drought, and then again in 2013-14,
after the formation of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, which
was formed to better manage water flows.

Ms Slattery said that her research revealed irrigation
development in the north of the Murray Darling basin which
stretches as far as central Queensland played a key role in
reducing these smaller, regular flows, along with drought and
climate change.

It is clear what has caused the Darling River fish kill
mismanagement and repeated policy failure, Ms Slattery said in a
written statement.

Going On-Country is expected to have many benefits for the
physical, social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of Aboriginal
people living in remote areas. Whilst there is evidence that Caring
for Country programs can improve Aboriginal health, there has been
little consideration for the potential benefits of self-initiated
activities when On-Country. This research was therefore aimed at
finding out if self-initiated On-Country activities are an
important source of health benefit for the Anindilyakwa people of
Groote Eylandt.

Whilst there are several barriers to going On-Country, the study
suggests it is an important source for improving health. In
particular, the evidence shows that collecting traditional foods is
a culturally inclusive activity that is self-initiated and commonly
performed On-Country, which in turn can have several health
benefits.

...

14:44

This year I send Che, my firstborn, into his final year of
Primary School. Im in total dismay that all those years have passed
by.

I vividly remember the lead up to his first day; I would get
teary every time we drove past the school gate. I was comforted by
the fact that he was ready eager to learn and make new friends but
my mother grief was strong.

The first week was a whirlwind of tears (mine, not his), school
notes, exhaustion and new faces. The anticipation had subsided and
was promptly replaced with the stark reality of the school routine;
an unrelenting and tiring one that would take me months to get used
to.

In retrospect I was grieving the loss of those languid,
spontaneous pre-school days and simultaneously attempting to accept
that this was our new normal; for me and for every sibling after
him.

I felt like his first five years went fast but the years that
have followed have been a wild, speedy ride. How on earth were
here, on the other end of Primary School, baffles me. But weve both
learnt a lot and as a parent I have much more faith in the public
school system than I did back then. A few things Ive gleaned along
the way:

Building a rapport with your childs teacher is one of the most
important things you can do as a parent. Keeping the line of
communication open builds a respectful relationship and fostering
it throughout the year ensures that any issues that arise can be
dealt with quickly and, hopefully, effectively. That said, there
will be some teachers that you, or your child, may not get along
with and in these instances Ive always reminded myself that this is
real life; were not all going to get along but we can be kind.

Do whats sustainable for your whole family. Kindergarten,
especially, requires a lot of parents physically and emotionally.
We want to ease our children into each new stage of school hence we
feel like we need to volunteer and be present at every single
event. Truth is, you dont. And in most cases, you cant. Because if
youre working and/or juggling younger children, its incredibly
difficult to volunteer amidst the babys nap, work calls and
day-to-day errands. Do what you can and only whats best for the
whole family.
Class/grade Facebook groups are a fabulous resource for parents to
keep up to date with school reminders and events. Theyre also a
giant comfort for those of us that think were the only ones
forgetting important information, because you can guarantee that at
least once a week someone is asking: Is it sports uniform tomorrow?
Did anyone get the note about the fundraiser? What constitutes
crazy hair? and my personal favourite: So what exactly IS the
homework this week?

Most importantly Id tell you to scrap the homework for an
afternoon at the beach, recognise the value and importance of
mental health days, make use of the second-hand uniform stall, have
the occasional (or reg...

It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South
Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests solar power.
Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes
at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. People
tend to stay at home, she said. They dont walk around when its like
this.Its easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds
to blister a dogs paw or childs foot. In Mildura, in northern
Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked
up their tools, which had been left in the sun at
46C. Fish
were ...

14:23

Extreme bushfire conditions in Australia are becoming
worse, fires are burning in areas that should never burn at times
when there should not be fire, former Fire and Rescue NSW
commissioner Greg Mullins says to describe our now unpredictable
fire seasons.. (subscribers only)

12:15

[ Thursday, 24 Jan; 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. ] Commemorate the first
anniversary of the Save UNE Habitat Trees campaign achieving the
temporary stopping of the chopping. Please bring your friends and
join us for a picnic lunch near one of these rare, precious and
beautiful trees still standing - one that is still designated for
destruction! Thursday 1-2pm 24th January Manna Gum, near Mary White
College [...] full article

08:36

The sudden appearance of a mountain of blue green algae poisoned
dead fish at Menindee in the north west New South Wales part of the
Darling, has brought to public attention yet again, the fact that
Australias biggest water system is very sick.

Menindee: "It's not drought, unfortunately it is man-made. And I
think someone needs to stand up and take accountability for what's
happened. We've spoken to a lot of locals already today, and we've
seen them crying" Tolarno Station farmer Kate McBride. "The
Menindee lakes is like a nursery for these fishthey stock the
Murray (River) as well." Tonight on 7 News at 6pm, the NSW Minister
for Regional Water Niall Blair MLC speaks to us after his tour of
the Darling River. www.7plus.com.au/news #Menindee #DarlingRiver
#7News

This is not a new problem. We have known for years, that way too
much water is being pumped out. The problem has been
continuous mismanagement. There have been other warnings, like the
previous
blue-green algae blooms and the
drying up of the mouth near Adelaide in South Australia.

Sunday, 20 January

22:06

CWP Renewables and Partners Group (a global private markets
investment management firm which is also the majority equity
investor in the Sapphire Wind Farm) seek to share the benefits of
what is now a wind, solar (more details below) and battery project
with the local communities which hosts the project. CWP and
Partners Group are pleased [...] full article

22:00

[ Monday, 18 Mar to Sunday, 24 Mar. ] Grounded Gathering is back
for it's 4th edition. This time we will gather in Ngarabal country,
just outside of Deepwater (NSW). Our annual Gathering is split in
to two parts. The first is a five-day, hands-on, workshop program
for a small group of participants (we call them 'sprouts') ready to
invest in their future through practical [...] full article

21:51

The Independent Planning Commission has postponed a preliminary
hearing on a coal mine project in the states northwest due to
unprecedented community interest. A last-minute surge in
registrations has resulted in a record number of speakers for the
preliminary stage of the multi-stage public hearing. Eighty-three
people had been registered by the Commission to have their say
[...] full article

19:00

On the first day of the year in Nauru, Iranian refugee Bita*
sent a damning letter to the Australian Border Force (ABF) accusing
it of barbarism. She had been refused resettlement in the United
States and demanded an end to being held indefinitely on the
Pacific island.

Im fed up and Im not going to beg for settlement in Australia or
reunion with my brother [in Australia] any more, she wrote to the
ABF. Please let me know when would you let me seek asylum in
another country which cares about humanitarian [sic].

The ABF is the government agency responsible for onshore and
offshore border control.

Bita, a 30-year-old woman from an Arab minority in Iran, asked
the agency why it refused to treat her depression, anxiety attacks,
hand pains and sciatica. Was this a way of abusing her, she
wondered? If so, please let me know when you are planning to stop
harming and punishing me, she wrote.

Bita has sent a stream of increasingly anguished correspondence
to the ABF for years, pleading for intervention. Medical
specialists on Nauru have acknowledged her long mental decline.
There is very little life in her, one International Health and
Medical Services (IHMS) counsellor reported.

Bita was transferred to Nauru in 2014 after fleeing Iran due to
state and family violence and travelling by boat from Indonesia to
Australia. After more than five years in detention she lives
without hope of immediate resettlement.

Testimonies of refugee women on Nauru show an acute situation of
untreated illnesses, sexual abuse and degradation.

To what scripture have you taken oath, that I was bleeding from
a dog attack, yet like a bloodthirsty monster you were smelling my
blood? wrote Iranian refugee Sahar* to IHMS this year. You kept
telling me my wounds were not serious Your oath is to the devil,
not to God.

In 2017 Sahar was attacked by a dog in a Nauruan detention camp.
After being bitten, her anxiety wors...

16:19

Shortly after Australia emerged from a big battle about the
legality of gay marriage, two Gentoo penguins, unaware of the
potential political controversy surrounding their relationship,
became a national symbol as they successfully brought a baby
penguin into the world together.

Not only did the unlikely pair hatch and raise a baby penguin
together, they did so far better than any other penguin pair in
their colony. Gentoo penguins Sphen and Magic are part of a
relatively young colony living in Australias Sydney Aquarium.

Parenting hasnt been the forte of most of the penguins in the
young colony of 33. Most of them, despite having laid eggs,
repeatedly found themselves too tempted by the desire to swim or
play that their neglected eggs never hatched. While this behavior
isnt unusual for inexperienced penguins, one pair stood out from
the crowd.

Not only were Sphen and Magic the
only gay pair in the colony, they were the only pair exhibiting
signs of being prepared for parenting. All signs pointed to the
pair being diligent and careful parents. In fact, they had already
build a nest together and were sitting on it constantly.

In response to this extraordinary
behavior, aquarium staff gave the couple a dummy egg. Sphen and
Magic took to it immediately, giving the staff all the proof they
needed to know these two were ready for the real thing. And so, the
next time a heterosexual couple appeared poised to neglecting yet
another egg, it was transferred to the care of Sphen and Magic.

An Unlikely Pair

Sphen, at 6-years-old, is elder of
the two and hails from SeaWorld. Hes a quiet and serious male, less
interested in playing with toys and humans than his counterparts.
Magic was born in captivity at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium. At
a playful 3-years-old, hes a regular aquarium star excitable and
playful and greets visitors as he plays.

The two make an unlikely pair, but aquarium staff and penguin
keepers cannot say what makes one penguin choose one mate over
another. Whatever it may be that brought Sphen and Magic together
is the real deal.

On a summer day at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, the two met and, in
typical Gentoo form, the two began to bow to each other. Their
relationship progressed as they began to bring carefully selected
pebbles to each other, perfect for nest building. This act is a
form of consent. If one penguin were not interested in the other,
they would simply reject the pebbles by pushing them away with a
beak. Instead of rejected the pebbles, they admired them.

The fruits of Frank, Brian and Joel Houston, the leaders of the
three generations of the extremely corrupt Hillsong Pentecostal
dynasty based in Sydney, Australia are the heretical Prosperity
Gospel, pedophilia, cover-ups of pedophilia, serial adultery,
acceptance of homosexuality and unrepentant homosexuals in their
midst, rampant deceptions and financial pillaging of the Blessed
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, through out Australian, New
Zealand and all other the world, where they have established
churches in prominent cities.

These locations include London, New York City and Los Angeles,
where many celebrities and unrepentant gays attend their
churches.

10:44

1803 - Seems Charlie Grimes popped into Port Phillip (which wasn't
Port Phillip at the time but probably labouring under its own
moniker now long lost in the mists of time), cast his pithy baby
blues over the Mornington Peninsula and declared, "I am soooo not
redecorating this place!" before tattling to Gov King how he just
didn't do sandy soil for settlements.
The lack of fresh water may have had some bearing on it, too.
Best not let on to the swarms of tourists and residents of the
Mornington Peninsula that its unsuitable for settlement!

1803 - Louis Freycinet, in his ship Casuarina, sailing up the
larger of South Australia's two gulfs, was in the vicinity of what
is now called Moonta Bay.

1841 - Jorgen Jorgensen, The Convict King and claimant to the
throne of Denmark and Iceland, popped his clogs, as all men do, in
Hobart.

1842 - Tunnerminnerwait was Hanged at Melbourne for the murder of
two whalers at Cape Paterson.
1842 - Maulboyheenner was Hanged at Melbourne for the murder of two
whalers at Cape Paterson.
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were the first people to be
hanged by the Government in the District of Port Phillip and were
buried in an unmarked grave on the site of the now Queen Victoria
Market, where there have been numerous reports of sightings of
their ghosts.

1849 - The good ship...no,not Lollipop but Fortitude parked in
Lower Level 2 space 3a at Morton Bay QLD with its cargo of 245
immigrants from Britain for Rev John Dunmore Lang's Cooksland
cotton growing scheme. Its temporary headquarters were set up at
Fortitude Valley, named after the ship which brought them
there.

1854 - Fire destroyed a city block in Hobart, Tas.

1858 - The Wesleyan Chapel in Lydiard St , Ballarat, opened for
business.

1863 - James Whyte replaced T.D. Champman as Premier of
Tasmania.

1869 - Frederick Alexander, inventor of the Alexander
Technique which takes too long to explain here in 25 words or less,
was hatched in Tassie.

1880 - Andrew George Scott, better known as bushranger Captain
Moonlite, was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol.

1880 - Thomas Rogan (Bushranger) A member of the Moonlite Gang, was
hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol for the murder of Constable Webb-Bowen
at Wantabadgery.

07:58

I have been off on a too short weekend
trip to Sydney. That was last weekend and I am just catching up
here now. Holiday mode and a heat wave are my reasons for not
checking in sooner. Tim went back to work today after a month of
leave and Hope will be back at school at the end of the month. Then
it is back to routine. School has been a backbone of my routine
since 1999 so it will be strange next year not to have that as Hope
finishes school in October and she is my baby.

Darling Harbour

Anyway, onto the holiday. We had some great family time. Visiting
with our son and his love. Got to see their new flat all decked out
how they want it. Last time we saw it, it was a work site. Looks
good now.

Had a wonderful evening with my sister, brother in law and my two
nephews. They visited us last month so our turn this time. Darling
Harbour was the backdrop and it didn't disappoint. I would rather
it was less crowded but with the draw of fireworks, everyone wants
to be there.

Forster

It had been too long since I had been to
the beach so I booked an overnight stopover at Forster for...

Saturday, 19 January

22:52

On Friday (18/1/19) I filed a Special Leave to Appeal
application with the High Court of Australia which re-agitates
unchallenged allegations of paedophile and bribe taking judges in
NSW. They are allegations that numerous judges of the NSW Supreme
Court worked to have suppressed for over 18 months and even while I
was in jail []

18:47

17:00

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekends
Quiz. The information provided should help you work out
why you missed a question or three! If you havent already done the
Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the
answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern
Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic
thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an
error.

Question 1:

If economy-wide average nominal wages fail to keep pace with the
inflation rate then it means the profit share in GDP is rising.

The answer is False.

We also have to consider productivity movements.

The wage share in nominal GDP is expressed as the total wage
bill as a percentage of nominal GDP. Economists differentiate
between nominal GDP ($GDP), which is total output produced at
market prices and real GDP (GDP), which is the actual physical
equivalent of the nominal GDP. We will come back to that
distinction soon.

To compute the wage share we need to consider total labour costs
in production and the flow of production ($GDP) each period.

Employment (L) is a stock and is measured in persons (averaged
over some period like a month or a quarter or a year.

The wage bill is a flow and is the product of total employment
(L) and the average nominal wage (w) prevailing at any point in
time. Stocks (L) become flows if it is multiplied by a flow
variable (W). So the wage bill is the total labour costs in
production per period.

So the wage bill = W.L

The wage share is just the total labour costs expressed as a
proportion of $GDP (W.L)/$GDP in nominal terms, usually expressed
as a percentage. We can actually break this down further.

Labour productivity (LP) is the units of real GDP per person
employed per period. Using the symbols already defined this can be
written as:

LP = GDP/L

so it tells us what real output (GDP) each labour unit that is
added to production produces on average.

We can also define another term that is regularly used in the
media the real wage which is the purchasing power equivalent on the
nominal wage that workers get paid each period. To compute the real
wage we need to consider two variables: (a) the nominal wage (W)
and the aggregate price level (P).

We might consider the aggregate price level to be measured by
the consumer price index (CPI) although there are huge debates
about that.

Now the nominal wage (W) that is paid by employers to workers is
determined in the labour market ...

16:47

Rob McBride and Menindee resident, Dick Arnold stand in the
Darling river, holding Murray cod that have lived through decades
of droughts and floods, but could not survive this human-made
disaster. Image: Kate McBride NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall
Blair revealed the latest fish die-off has occurred at Lake Hume on
the NSW-Victorian border. The numbers of dead fish are much smaller
than at

10:08

1790 - The Second Fleet decided to play follow the leader with The
First Fleet and, dragging 1,006 convicts along for the ride, set
off on a Sunday sail from England.

1800 - John Washington Price, recently arrived on the ship Minerva,
observes that Pummil-woy (who frequents Sidney & Paramatta) is
known to say that no gun or pistol can kill him He has now lodged
in him, in shot, sluggs [sic] and bullets about eight or ten ounces
of lead, it is supposed he has killed over 30 of our people, but it
is doubtful on which side the provocation was given.

1835 - The "last remaining" Tassie Aborigines were rounded up and
put onto Flinders Island.
Apparently all those others in Tassie were figments of our
imaginations.

1846 - Charles Sturt's 18 month expedition to open up inland
Australia came to a crashing halt (coz the Simpson Desert and a
severe drought just wouldn't play ball), so he took his bat and
ball home to Adelaide.

1850 - Australian Philosophical Society (late the Royal Society of
NSW) was formed in Sydney.

1863 - The Main Western Railway Line (NSW) was flung open for
business from Kingswood to Penrith.

1869 - Ida Stanley, the first female school teacher in Alice
Springs who was loved by both Europeans and Aborigines, was
born.

1873 - Henry Burrell, known as The Platypus Man for his extensive
research and study of our shy monotreme, was hatched.

1877 - Hmph! They didn't ask my permission...Construction began on
the great hall and vestibule in the Victorian Parliament, costing
37,500 pounds.

1877 - Robert Kaleski, bushman and dog breeder who drew up the
breeding standards for the Blue Heeler, Kelpie and other Aussie
breeds, was pupped.

1886 - Australian wharf workers went back to work after an 18-day
strike over wages.

1887 - Dust off your travelling rug and pick up your gloves Aunt
Mildred...Victoria and South Australia were finally joined by rail
when they finished their tea break and completed a section of track
from Dimboola to Seviceton.

1887 - The railway line from North Creswick to Rocky Lead (Vic)
opened.

1897 - The Sunday Times was first published in Perth, WA

1900 - Sydney excitedly discovered its very first case of the
plague; in the following 8 months 103 people were carried off this
mortal coil from the disease.

1906 - William Kidston became the Premier of Queensland.

1907 A tropical cyclone hit Cooktown, Queensland, killing six.

1925 - The Molong -Dubbo Railway...

07:00

You know when youre a kid and someone says to you, I
bet I can beat you to that tree! so you break into a sprint and run
like your life depends on it, just to prove them wrong? My
sprint towards proving my identity started well before I could tie
my shoelaces.

*

Look at us, a bunch of white girls living in Bali,
laughed the woman with her legs in the pool next to me. It was my
first day of a month-long writing retreat on the Indonesian island,
and a group of us were sitting around getting to know each
other.

It took me a moment to realise that, yes, to her I
did sit in that category of white girl.

I plunged in to a self-reflective state. Why did I
feel so irked by this comment? Something in the pit of my stomach
began to churn.

It was a harmless enough thing to say, but when
someone calls me white it reminds me of how I spent the better half
of my life trying to prove Im not.

What is a white girl anyway? Someone who is
Caucasian? Of European descent? Someone who lives by western
standards? I dont know the answer, but these are questions I ask
myself all the time.

My family and I are New Zealanders. My dad is Mori,
and my mum is of European heritage. I was raised in a khanga
reo, which is a preschool held in a Marae
(traditional house); I was taught Te Reo Mori (Mori
language) from the age of three. I then went to kura
kaupapa, a full-immersion Mori school, where we spoke Mori all
day. I learned maths in Mori, to read and write in Mori, all
our sports were done in Mori you get the gist, I was raised in Mori
culture. As far as I knew, I was as Mori as they get. Whats weird
is that I never felt I belonged to it.

I got my mothers genes. My skin is pale. My brothers
got my dads genes, and people are always so quick to point out the
difference. Finding my place in primary school was pretty shit. I
was constantly bullied for being white. Kids used to say to me, Go
to a normal school, this place isnt for you your people stole our
land! At the age of seven I didnt understand. How could my people,
steal your land? Arent we of the same people?

From here, I was hell-bent on proving people wrong.
At 13, I started high school and sat all three of my Mori exams in
just two years something most people take three years to achieve
and dont start until the age of 15.

Friday, 18 January

21:03

The year 2019 had barely begun before news emerged that six
Russian sailors were kidnapped by pirates off the coast of
Benin. It was perhaps a foretaste of risks to come. As nations reel
from deteriorating economic conditions, instances of piracy and
other forms of supply chain disruptions are bound to increase.

According to the International
Maritime Bureau (IMB), 107 cases of piracy were noted during
the first half of 2018 vis--vis 87 throughout 2017.
The 2018 tally included 32 cases in Southeast Asian waters
and 48 along African shores representing 75% of the total. To put
this figure into perspective, Asian behemoths India and China
despite their vast shorelines recorded only 2 cases of piracy each
during the study period. Russia had none. In terms of hostages
taken, the IMB tally read 102 in H1 2018 vs 63 in H1 2017.

Piracy adds to shipping and retail costs worldwide as security,
insurance and salaries are hiked to match associated risks in
maritime transport. Merchant vessels will also take longer and
costlier routes to avoid piracy hotspots.

As over 90% of global trade is carried out by sea, the economic
effects of maritime crime can be crippling. Maritime crime includes
not only criminal activity directed at vessels or maritime
structures, but also the use of the high seas to perpetrate
transnational organized crimes such as smuggling of persons or
illicit substances. These forms of maritime crime can have
devastating human consequences.

Indeed, cases of human trafficking, organ harvesting, and the
smuggling of illicit substances and counterfeit goods are
proliferating worldwide in tandem with rising systemic debt and
suspect international agendas.

Australia offers a case in point. While it fantasizes over a
Quad of allies in the Indo-Pacific to save Asians from China
criminal elements from Hong Kong, Malaysia to squeaky-clean
Singapore have been routinely trafficking drugs,
tobacco and people right into Sydney harbour for years,
swelling the local organised crime economy to as much as
$47.4 billion (Australian dollars presumably) between 2016 and
2017.

17:07

Here is an idea for how the ABC might deal with the inevitable
round of cuts next Budget.

Clever bureaucrats when faced with funding cuts go for the
jugular. They attack some popular vote-sensitive function and
announce it will be cut. The backlash often results in a funding
rethink.

The ABC has lost $330 million in annual funding in the eight
years to 2018, about a third of its 2010 budget.

In 2017-18 it was down to $865 million or just 9.5 cents per
person per day, down from 19 cents a day in 1987.

If you convert the figures to 1987 dollars you get the famous 8
cents a day of the 1987 campaign compared to 4 cents a day (in 1987
dollar terms) today.

In short, the ABC has lost half its funding over the past 30
years. Small wonder it is full of cheap panel and cooking shows and
overseas drama series.

Nonetheless, it does a pretty good job.

As my mother said to me years ago in her nursing home communal
lounge where the TV was locked permanently on to a commercial
channel: Crispin, can you imagine life without the ABC!

Most of the funding cuts were accommodated through efficiencies,
but now all fat, duplication and waste is gone. Any more cuts will
have to go to core production.

So here is the big idea. Instead of salami slicing and hurting
every area of ABC endeavour, why not go for the jugular. The ABC
should announce that it is ending all coverage of sport.

The savings would go to meeting the cut first and any left over
go to Australian drama and documentaries. SBS should do the
same.

The screams from the politicians, particularly the Coalition
ones, would be loud indeed. But the ABC could quite reasonably
argue that conservative commentators have long called for the ABC
not to replicate what the commercials can do.

Of course, that commentary has been directed at news and current
affairs, but the fact is the commercials do not do news and current
affairs the way the ABC and SBS do concentrating on news of
consequence; investigating matters of public importance and
exposing malfeasance.

However, the ABC sports coverage is little different from the
commercial coverage. Further, sport is a spectacle and a result.
Bias and error are rare and quickly correctable, unlike political
coverage.

Further, there is little of public importance in sport. It does
not matter one whit whether NSW or Queensland wins the State of
Origin or whether Australia o...

17:00

EXCLUSIVE: A woman who mocks the poor and thought the elderly
man near the escalators was in the way, so called the police. A
middle-aged man who works for a global management consulting firm
and self-identifies as "politically incorrect" but nevertheless
believed there was a "crazy Asian guy" nearby, and so he wrote
about it to police over social media.

17:00

Welcome to The Weekend Quiz. The quiz tests
whether you have been paying attention or not to the blog posts
that I post. See how you go with the following questions. Your
results are only known to you and no records are retained.

1. If economy-wide average nominal
wages fail to keep pace with the inflation rate then it means the
owners of capital are enjoying an increasing share in GDP.

TrueFalse

2. Assume that a nation is
continuously running an external deficit of 2 per cent of GDP. In
this economy, if the private domestic sector successfully saves
overall, we would always find:

Unable to determine because we don't know
the scale of the private domestic sector saving as a % of
GDP.A fiscal surplusA fiscal deficit

3.
Assume that the inflation and nominal interest rates both zero and
constant. Consider a country with a public debt to GDP ratio of 100
per cent, which the mainstream economists consider to be
dangerously high. The mainstream prescription is to run primary
fiscal surpluses to stabilise and then reduce the debt ratio. Under
the circumstances given, this stra...

13:58

A Queensland choir is using music therapy to unlock language
problems and in turn, help sufferers learn to speak again after a
brain injury.A person with Aphasia loses the ability to speak
following a brain injury like a stroke, but the music therapy
bypasses the injured brain cells using rhythm and memory to prompt
the words.

Band manager Peter Stuart has mild aphasia and said it sometimes
feels like the word he wants to say is on "the tip of his tongue"
but he just cannot get it out.

13:52

Hospital wards around Orange
will have seven new staff working through them from the end of next
week helping people in their darkest hours. However, these
staff members arent medical professionals theyre cleaners and
footballers and teachers and everything in between but theyre all
people who have been through their darkest hours and no want to
help others avoid the same fate.

The seven new workers are part of a new Mission
Australia program to help alleviate the stigma and trauma from
mental illness at Bloomfield by having people who have lived
experience either themselves or from close family members
dealing and coping with mental health.

13:35

1788 - The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay
to establish a penal colony. They found the location unsuitable and
Capt. Arthur Philip moved on to Sydney Cove. England sent the first
sheep along with convicts to Australia.
Yep, somewhere between today and the 20th them wot wasn't invited
rocked up and crashed the party.
NOT on the 'precious' 26th.

1794 - Members of the NSW Corps rioted on Norfolk Island following
a play held for the Queen's Birthday.

1815 - A residential school for Aboriginal children was opened at
Parramatta with six boys
and six girls.

1816 - The ship Fanny arrived at Port Jackson with 171 convicts and
news of the Battle of Waterloo.

1818 - The Great Western Road between Parramatta and Emu Ford
(Plains) opened.

1825 - Hume and Hovell returned from their successful exploration
overland to Port Phillip.

1830 - James, James, Morrison, Morrison commonly known as Jim...er,
James Knight got hitched to 'is swee'heart called May Smith, going
down in Oz History as the first married Europeans in the Colony of
Westralia.
Aww, bless.
With or without the golden gown at the other end of the town.

1849 - Australia's first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, was dropped
off by the stork in Glebe, Sydney.

1851 - The Union Bank of Australia opened in Lyttelton,
NZ.

1863 -The Sydney to Parramatta railway extended to Penrith.

1878 - Get your backs into it boys! The Ghan Railway construction
was begun.

1883 - William Burns was Hanged at Adelaide Gaol for the murder of
Henry Loton at sea.

1901 - Jimmy Governor was Hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol for the
murder of Helen Josephine Kerz at Breelong, on 20 July 1900. In the
same incident he and Jackie Underwood also killed Mrs. Sarah
Mawbey, Grace Mawbey, Percival Mawbey and Hilda Mawbey. Jimmy and
his brother Joe also killed Alexander McKay near Ulan on 23 July,
Elizabeth O'Brien and her baby son at Poggie, near Merriwa, on 24
July, and Keiran Fitzpatrick near Wollar, on 26 July.

1911 - A worldwide competition to design the national capital was
announced.

1933 - The Aussie Cricket Board of Control was feeling slightly out
of spin when they cabled the MCC to protest at the unsportsmanlike
head-hunting bodyline bowling that "was likely to upset friendly
relations existing between Australia and England".

The current record-breaking heatwave
is a preview of more frequent and more extreme temperatures
expected due to climate change and a wake up call for urgent
action. It is melting our roads and buckling train tracks, changing
our weather patterns and putting pressure on nature and
agriculture. The increase in heatwaves alone will literally kill
more of us.

Buckingham has said that the
heatwave and other extreme weather events are sending a clear
message that we need urgently mobilise for climate
action.

The coming years are critical in the
fight to protect the people we love and our planet from dangerous
climate change, he said.

Climate and energy policy will be at
the top of the NSW state election agenda, including in many
regional seats where farmers are seeing first-hand the impacts of
climate change on the land and are frustrated the Nationals have
failed to do something about it.

The next NSW government can either
fiddle while the climate heats beyond our control, or they can
transform our community, economy and natural world by phasing out
coal and powering our world by 100 per cent renewable
energy.

This transformation will bring with
it great opportunities for new jobs and innovative technologies
across the state. Australia can transition away from being a quarry
and lead the way on renewable innovation, exporting our science,
know-how and clean solar power to the world.

11:56

Environmental groups, including The Wilderness
Society, are saying the new NSW Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs)
will drive more native species to extinction and ensure the
collapse of NSW forests.

This follows briefings between Commonwealth and NSW
governments. The group is claiming that the Commonwealth have
accepted at face value the assurances given by NSW in relation to
protecting threatened species when they should be ensuring no more
species become extinct.

The process is completely broken, said Peter
Robertson of The Wilderness Society.

Were in a terrible new reality where no-one is taking
responsibility for our natural heritage and theyre passing the buck
between each other. The RFAs are, pure and simple, a licence to
destroy our forests with impunity. We urgently need better laws
that can protect nature.

The group, that also includes the National Parks
Association of NSW, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), the North
Coast Environment Council and the South East Regional Conservation
Alliance, are also saying that the Commonwealth government has
failed to challenge NSW on cherry picking research in regards the
impact of logging on carbon stores despite its own documents
stating that logging reduces the carbon stores of forests.

Dr Oisn Sweeney, Senior Ecologist with the National
Parks Association of NSW said, Its painfully clear that no concrete
data was used to assess the impacts of the last 20 years of logging
before committing to another 20. There has been a complete failure
on the part of the Commonwealth to discharge its duty to protect
matters of national environmental significance. That is simply
inexcusable.

The next Murray-Darling

They point out that the lack of accountability of
governments, and their overriding drive to maintain wood supply to
industry, makes a MurrayDarling Basin scenario of ecosystem
collapse almost inevitable for NSW forests.

The unfolding ecological catastrophe we are
witnessing right now in the Murray-Darling shows what happens when
the Commonwealth fails to hold the states accountable and step in
to protect the public interest, said Susie Russell of the North
Coast Environment Council.

11:02

LIFEGUARDS will extend their beach patrol hours today (Friday
January 18), to provide swimmers additional time to cool off
safely.

Hours at 9 of Wollongongs 17 patrolled beaches will be
increased, with flags up until 7pm at Stanwell Park, Austinmer,
Thirroul, Bulli and Corrimal. The flags will go down at Sandon
Point at 6pm.

Wollongong Councils Beach Services Manager, Paul Dreghorn said
while the Illawarra has escaped the worst of the heatwave
conditions in comparison with the rest of the state, the region
remains hot and lifeguards will work extra hours to enable people
cool off safely in the surf.

Thats why weve asked our lifeguards to remain on duty beyond the
usual flags down time to give people the chance for a swim, he
said.

We just ask people to visit one of the nine beaches with
additional hours and to remember if there are no flags up, then
theres no swim.

The beaches with additional hours are:

Stanwell Park to 7pm

Austinmer to 7pm

Thirroul to 7pm

Bulli to 7pm

Corrimal to 7pm

Nth Gong to 7pm

City Beach to 7pm

Pt Kembla to 7pm

Sandon Point to 6pm

10:39

Real estate cycle expert Bryan Kavanagh says turnover and price
declines in Sydney and Melbourne during 2018 indicate an economic
recession in the 2019-20 financial year. The 2018 Kavanagh-Putland
Index, released today, shows the total value of Australian real
estate sales to GDP. Mr Kavanagh said the $50 billion pumped into
markets by the Rudd-Swan []

Welcome to the first newsletter for 2019. I started these
newsletters in 2012 when the mainstream Australian media started
presenting false and misleading information about my university
research to the public. This was a result of the Australian Skeptics Inc lobby groups and their
offshoot SAVN and the Friends of Science in Medicine deceptively
named well-funded lobby groups that are promoting pharmas interests
in government vaccination policies (astroturfing).

If this wasnt the case in Australia then the government would
not need to suppress my academic research from public debates and
discussion and from court cases on vaccination. For those of you
who have missed this suppression here is the conference that was
held on the 30 June 2018 in Sydney titled The Censorship of the Vaccination
Debate in Australia.

09:33

I like this recipe for a summer salad that also tastes good in
stir-fries and soups

Take six of the Lebanese variety or around three of larger
varieties, score their outsides with a fork and then cut in half or
quarters (original recipe says to scoop out seeds but it seems a
waste of water), then marinate for at least an hour with red onion
(and chopped chillis if you're inclined) in a quarter cup of white
vinegar with a tablespoon each of sugar and sweet chilli sauce.

Wednesday, 16 January

08:06

Sunday 20th January 2019 in collaboration with the Dowsers
Society of NSW at the Hunter"s Hill Community Centre starts at 2
pm.

The Community Hall, 44 Gladesville
Road Hunters Hill NSW

-

Our major focus is on four skulls we have recently examined, two
are still on site, two are in our possession. The unresolved
problem that these skulls create is at least three have no Earthly
equivalent.

Two skulls do not have foreheads, there is nothing above the
eyebrow ridges, the skull cases slope backward at 180 degrees and
greater, are semi-rectangular and both have massive eyes which are
the largest ever seen. Another skull has no evidence of suturing
which means it cannot be classified as hominin or sapiens.

Complementing these developments, some extremely compelling
evidence has turned up that absolutely proves that the Standing
Stones site is legitimate, and there was the first language on this
continent that predates all other languages ever spoken.

Quite a few loose ends have been tied up, and even the Courier
Mail will have to concede their official denial of the site, and
the archaeologist was completely wrong and should be publicly
retracted.

07:34

NSW Nationals MLC Ben Franklin has
avoided commenting on the Murray Darling water management issues
that have plagued his government and instead blames the recent mass
fish kills on a natural occurrence.

He also accused NSW Labor ofcapitalising on an unfortunate
event.

Franklin also declined to comment on
whether he believed water-intensive large-scale cotton irrigation
farming is appropriate for the climatic region of regional
NSW.

As reported by ABCs 4 Corners
on July 24, 2017, plans to rescue the Murray-Darling Basin river
system were undermined amid accusations of illegal water
use.

The top bureaucrat in charge of
water in NSW, Gavin Hanlon, resigned after the program
aired.

Richard Kingsford, the director of
the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW, told the
SMH last week it was a disaster that had been many years
in the making because too much water had been diverted from the
system for agriculture.

The Echo asked Franklin, Do
you accept that the Nationals are responsible for this mess? Or was
this a bipartisan effort, as you suggested it is for the Richmond
River?

Franklin replied, The recent fish
kill in Menindee was caused by severely low water flow owing to
drought conditions, coupled with a sudden drop in temperature,
resulting in a disruption to the existing algal bloom in the Lower
Darling River, killing the algae and depleting the level of oxygen
in the water.

There is no denying that what we
have seen in the Menindee is an unfortunate event; however, these
events are not uncommon and can be result of many
factors.

In fact, there have been major
fish-kill incidents across the state, including in our own Richmond
River over the past 20 years, as a result of high rainfall
and...

01:20

Sydney's apartment pipeline is now shrinking after
its multi-year boom, but in the meantime there is plenty of new
stock for tenants to choose from.

December is a seasonally weak month for the
rentals market for obvious reasons, but Sydney had around 25,000
rental vacancies around Christmas according to the latest SQM
Research figures, for a vacancy rate of 3.6 per cent (well up from
2.6 per cent for the prior corresponding period).

Sydney's population is growing fast, but it's
always going to take time to digest such a high level of rental
supply coming all in a rush.

At the sub-regional level, rental vacancies are
especially high in the supply-responsive zones, such as within the
Hills District of Sydney.

Source: SQM Research

Some of the suburbs where landlords are really
likely to struggle have been flagged here often enough before,
including as Wentworth Point (8.3 per cent vacancy rate in
December).

Despite the high level of supply unit asking rents
increased in Sydney over the month.

At the other end of the spectrum Hobart (0.4 per
cent) had but a hundred or so vacancies, while Adelaide, Brisbane,
and Perth have consistently seen vacancy rates lower than a year
earlier, so these markets are tightening.

Tuesday, 15 January

21:26

A
MAN has been arrested after a stand-off with police at a Coledale
this morning.

Wollongong police were called to a home on Buttenshaw Drive just
after 9am after reports that several gunshots had been heard.

Police attended and were assisted by specialist officers from
the NSWPF Aviation Support Branch, Negotiation Unit and Tactical
Operations Unit.

A perimeter was established, with the 40-year-old man inside the
home with his elderly mother. It will be alleged by police that
whilst he was in the home, he threw fireworks onto the front lawn
before retreating inside.

The man was arrested about 11.20am, and taken Wollongong Police
Station without further incident. Following his arrest, it was
determined the man had been letting off fireworks and no shots had
been fired. His mother was removed from the home and will be cared
for by relatives.

Two dogs were also removed from the home and taken to Wollongong
Council Pound to be put down. A neighbour on the street said the
situation was sparked after the man refused to allow authorities to
come onto his property to talk about two aggressive dogs.

It is understood the Wollongong City Council rangers had
attended the property three times to pick up the dogs in question,
but were allegedly refused entry by the 40-year-old man.

Speaking on the incident today, Detective Inspector Brad
Ainsworth said the man had been taken into custody and was likely
to be issued with criminal infringement notices.

19:51

Its midday and Im standing in a parking lot across
the road from Warner Bros. Studio. Around me I can see families,
couples, groups of middle-aged women, and the occasional man. I
overhear that a family has flown in from Seattle just to be here,
another have travelled from East Coast, a couple have been on
waiting list for weeks, and a pair have been lining up since
8am.

Were in Burbank, California, in the waiting room, or
more accurately, the WB parking lot queuing to be a part of the
live studio audience of The Ellen DeGeneres Show one of
the most watched daytime TV shows of all time.

Im not the worlds biggest Ellen fan. Its
something I turn on when I wake up in the afternoon, a background
show. Yet on a whim, Im somehow here amongst all the middle-aged
mums and their reluctant partners. I signed myself up for studio
tickets online months in advance when I was booking my flights to
America. After confirming my attendance, I kill five hours with a
walk and a long lunch. The earlier you confirm your attendance on
the day, the closer to the front your seats are which is why so
many people have been waiting here since the morning. Yet as I join
my place in the 400-long queue again, I suspect that some of these
women havent moved from this one location all day.

Each Ellen episode feels like a very
special episode, which has always fascinated me. Watch any episode
and Ellen is always celebrating something, and as a result giving
away extravagant prizes to her fans.

Before heading into the studio, we sign a waiver and
answer a questionnaire questions like Do you know someone who is
trying to continue their education but does not have the money to
do so? Tell us about it below, and Would a new car change your
life? Or do you know someone who needs a new car? Tell us why!

Im getting flashbacks to Oprahs iconic You Get A Car
moment. I laugh to myself and update my Facebook status to: Brb
about to go on The Ellen DeGeneres Show! EVERYBODY GETS A
CAR!!!

At 5:45pm, after an entire day of waiting, were led
into yet another line to get in to the studio. But to get to our
seats, we first have to make it through Ellens official gift shop.
We are now entering Ellens world, the bits you dont see on TV. I
wasnt aware that this was even a thing. Ellen has her own branded
underwear ($20), Ellen branded water sparkling or still ($5), Ellen
branded shirts, hoodies, jumpers, mugs, you name it its got Ellens
name written on it.

...

13:42

Open for entries from 15th January, 2019. To enter you simply
have to like and then private message your wildlife images to
WIRES facebook page.

Images should be native Australian mammals, birds or reptiles
ideally observed and photographed in the wild (or in care if you
are a licensed wildlife care volunteer). We would also love a few
details of how you came to capture the image. There is a limit of 4
images per entrant. Please also provide an email contact address
with your message.

Monday, 14 January

14:15

An alarming rise in the number of young Indigenous Australians
taking their own life has sparked calls for immediate government
intervention. Last year saw the highest ever number of Indigenous
youth suicides in a single year and, already, this year, four
Aboriginal girls have taken their own lives.

Researchers fear Indigenous children will soon make up half of all
youth suicides.

Years later we would realise, with a bang, the purpose of the
new great game.

Spying>Analysis>Persuasion. The Mi(6)ssion was not just to
collect information about the inner core of our lives, but using
big data AI analysis, to learn how we as a society and as
individuals, would be most vulnerable to misinformation, and apt to
consent. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Chris Wylie, held
a mirror to our nakedness in the face of such power, and to his
companys for-profit information operations, within the context of
elections.

As they appear, the Integrity Initiative revelations, as well
documented here by Robert Stevens on the
WSWS,< /> are steadily revealing that the same national
security bodies, who amended or ignored constitutional laws and
collected everyones confidential information, are behind years of
misinformation, with a view to a war. WW3 it seems. Stevens
enlightens us on IIs involvement in the Skripal reporting, and the
licence it gave Teresa May to
lash out at Russia.

Sunday, 13 January

13:12

[Editors note: In December last year was the
fourth anniversary of the Sydney Siege. Below is the verbatim copy
of the letter Mary Maxwell sent to the coroner before he completed
his Inquest.]

The following Ninety-Nine Ways letter was sent to
the NSW Coroners Court in 2016 and was acknowledged in a reply from
Melissa Heris, solicitor for the Lindt Caf inquest. No changes have
been made here, but bolding and boxed headings are added.

To Coroner Michael Barnes September 30,
2016

Your Honour:

I respectfully submit this as an interested citizen.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the
Inques...

Saturday, 12 January

23:12

The NSW Supreme Court of Appeal has found that Capilano Honeys
lawyers lied and deceived the court about their poisonous and toxic
honey defamation and injurious falsehood claim
against journalist Shane Dowling. The court also found that
Capilano Honeys lies and deception in gaining a super-injunction
and wide-ranging suppression orders has had an unjustifiable
chilling effect on []

17:00

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekends
Quiz. The information provided should help you work out
why you missed a question or three! If you havent already done the
Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the
answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern
monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic
thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an
error.

Question 1:

In a nation running an on-going external deficit, if the private
domestic sector decides to increase the extent that it spends less
than its overall income, then the national government has to
increase its discretionary fiscal deficit in order to avoid rising
employment losses.

The answer is True.

First, we must understand the linkages between the external and
domestic situation.

To refresh your memory the sectoral balances are derived as
follows. The basic income-expenditure model in macroeconomics can
be viewed in (at least) two ways: (a) from the perspective of the
sources of spending; and (b) from the perspective of the uses of
the income produced. Bringing these two perspectives (of the same
thing) together generates the sectoral balances.

From the sources perspective we write:

GDP = C + I + G + (X M)

which says that total national income (GDP) is the sum of total
final consumption spending (C), total private investment (I), total
government spending (G) and net exports (X M).

Expression (1) tells us that total income in the economy per
period will be exactly equal to total spending from all sources of
expenditure.

We also have to acknowledge that financial balances of the
sectors are impacted by net government taxes (T) which includes all
taxes and transfer and interest payments (the latter are not
counted independently in the expenditure Expression (1)).

Further, as noted above the trade account is only one aspect of
the financial flows between the domestic economy and the external
sector. we have to include net external income flows (FNI).

Adding in the net external income flows (FNI) to Expression (2)
for GDP we get the familiar gross national product or gross
national income measure (GNP):

(2) GNP = C + I + G + (X M) + FNI

To render this approach into the sectoral balances form, we
subtract total taxes and transfers (T) from both sides of
Expression (3) to get:

(3) GNP T = C + I + G + (X M) + FNI T

Now we can collect the terms by arranging them according to the
three sectoral balanc...

11:00

Australia is setting records for the longest run of economic
growth without a recession.

Italy is doing the opposite.

The economy hasnt grown since it joined the euro. A triple-dip
recession is about to become a quadruple.

Why? What has led to the divergence in the wealth of
nations?

I know the answer: Their currencies.

On New Years Eve in Germany in 2002, I was more interested in
throwing firecrackers than the new euro banknotes. My mum tried to
show them to me, but I was busy.

My aim was for an explosion in mid-air. This involved holding on
to the firecracker for as long as possible and then lobbing it up
into the sky at the last second.

Then one of our firework rockets tipped over shortly before
launching. It took off towards our house.

My dad leapt over it, it ricocheted off some flowerpots in the
garden, and then exploded over the neighbours house.

We emigrated to Australia on the subsequent New Years Eve

Since then, the euro has dished out nothing but economic pain
for much of Europe.

Meanwhile, the Aussie dollar rescued Australia from a recession
during one of the worst global downturns in history.

How can a currency be so important?

In todays weekend-edition Reckoning, youll find out

Each time I went back to visit Europe over the years, Id get a
snapshot of the euros effects.

Thanks to my parents divorce, this was about twice a year for
weeks at a time.

Visiting extended family and friends across Europe, I saw
Germanys economic doldrums during the Gerhard Schroeder years,
housing bubbles in Ireland and Spain, and the sovereign debt crisis
in southern Europe.

Add in the policies of the euro projects masterminds at the EU,
and I also saw Brexit and the migrant crisis play out first hand
too.

Over the years, the only person benefiting from the euro and EU
seemed to be me.

I could travel freely on my European passports and didnt have to
fiddle about with currencies.

But everyone I visited told me how the euro is causing them
problems.

The exchange rate is too high or too low. Interest rates are too
high or too low. The Germans are selling us too many cars, the
Greeks are living off our money

Everyone had a complaint.

Not that any of this is new. For more than 100 years, Europe has
tried and failed to establish monetary unions like the euro. And
the failures are remarkably similar.

Discovering this was probably the most surprising and
interesting part...

Friday, 11 January

22:27

13:05

TRUE OPINION: Teenagers, Jack and Jennifer Edwards, were killed
mid-last year at their Western Sydney home in what police say was a
planned attack by their estranged father, John Edwards. There was
also a third victim. Their heartbroken mother, Olga Edwards,
committed suicide just a month ago, unable to face the trauma of
living without her children. Questions are now being asked as to
why the 68-year-old financial services worker was able to have
possession of not one but two powerful handguns given his history
and background, writes Tim Kent.

Thursday, 10 January

23:15

A WOONONA man has been charged after another man was stabbed
outside Wollongong Hospital earlier this week.

Just before 9.30am on Monday, a 40-year-old man was sitting at a
bus stop outside the hospital on Crown Street.

Police will allege that as a white Holden Commodore sedan drove
past, and the 45-year-old male driver yelled out the window, before
pulling into the hospital car park and getting out of the vehicle.
Its alleged he ran over to the younger man and stabbed him once in
the back, before fleeing the scene in the Holden.

The injured man was briefly admitted to hospital, however,
discharged himself before seeking treatment. Its believed the two
men were previously known to each other.

Officers from Wollongong Police District were notified and
commenced an investigation.

About 1.30pm on Monday, detectives went to an address in Woonona
and arrested the 45-year-old man. He was taken to Wollongong Police
Station and charged with affray.

23:01

A
MAN has been charged following an investigation by Strike Force
Trawler detectives into online child exploitation.

In November 2018, detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes
Squads Child Exploitation Internet Unit (CEIU) commenced an
investigation following a referral from Queensland Polices Task
Force Argos.

Strike Force Trawler detectives began engaging online with a man
from the Illawarra region.

Police will allege in court that the man believed he was
speaking with a 14-year-old girl and engaged in conversations about
sexual acts he wished to perform on the child and sent sexually
explicit images and video.

The man also made arrangements to meet with the child for
sex.

Following extensive inquiries, a 19-year-old man was arrested by
strike force detectives at a business in Unanderra about 10.30am on
Tuesday.

During a search of the man and a search warrant at a home in
Thirroul, investigators seized a mobile phone, a computer tablet,
and a number of electronic storage devices, which will undergo
forensic analysis.

The man was charged with using a carriage service to groom a
person under 16 years of age for sexual activity, using a carriage
service for sexual activity with person under 16 years of age, use
carriage service for solicit child pornography, use carriage
service to transmit indecent material to person under 16 years of
age, and possess child abuse material. He was granted strict
conditional bail and is due to appear at Wollongong Local Court on
Tuesday February 5.

Strike Force Trawler is an ongoing investigation by the CEIU
into the sexual abuse and ex...

22:51

DETECTIVES investigating the murder of a 90-year-old man at a
Woonona nursing home, have been advised a man allegedly involved
has died.

Detectives had been investigating the death of a patient after
he was allegedly assaulted by a 70-year-old man at the Illawarra
Retirement Trust nursing home on Tuesday November 27 2018.

A 90-year-old man suffered critical injuries in the assault and
was unable to be revived. Both men were patients in the
high-dependency dementia ward at the Popes Road nursing home.

Wollongong police together with the State Crime Commands
Homicide Squad, initiated an investigation into the death of the
90-year-old man; however, detectives have now been advised the
70-year-old man died in Shellharbour Hospital on Thursday December
27 2018.

A final report on the investigation into the death of the
90-year-old man will be made to the Coroner.

22:37

TWO men are before the courts after being charged with serious
drug offences when arrested at Austinmer and Fairy Meadow on
Wednesday.

During November 2018 Wollongong police formed Strike Force
Aperta to investigate the supply of illegal drugs in the Illawarra
area.

Investigators identified two men as part of the operation and
about 5.20pm on Wednesday arrested the men in the car park of a
Austinmer hotel.

Police will allege that a 39-year-old man was in possession of
more than $5000 cash and a search of his vehicle revealed several
prepacked containers of a substance believed to be
methylamphetamine. A small quantity of cannabis was also
located.

Investigators obtained a search warrant and examined a room in
the hotel allegedly locating MDMA tablets, heroin, Fentanyl and
GBL.

Another search warrant was executed at a home in Fairy Meadow
where MDMA tablets, Suboxone, cash and counterfeit currency were
located.

The men were conveyed to Wollongong Police Station where they
were later charged with numerous offences.

13:19

Local farmers Rob McBride and Dick
Arnold with Jeremy Buckingham on the Darling with with a dead cod a
victim of the recent fish kill.

Horror stories about the degradation
of our waterways have been circulating for many months and none
more graphically highlights this environmental tragedy than the
fish kills in the north west of the state in recent
days.

In the last 18 months both the
ABCs 4
Corners and the Environmental
Defenders Office (EDO), released material about the issues
of irrigation along the
Murray-Darling, and fish kills on theNamoi
River, the Lachlan River and the Darling River at
Menindee.

The NSW Department of Primary
Industries (DPI) and WaterNSW are investigating a
large fish kill at Menindee in Western NSW and
newly independent NSW MP Jeremy
Buckingham is visiting the Darling River at Menindee today (10
January 2019) to witness and document the
mass fish kills and speak with concerned local
community members, including Rob McBride from Tolarno
Station.

Labor calls Libs and Nats
out

NSW Labor is calling on the Liberals
and Nationals to stop their proposal to augment the Menindee Lakes
which Labor says will see decommissioning of large sections of the
lake and will mean further widespread ecological and environmental
disasters.

They say fishing on the Darling and Murray rivers is worth millions to
the regional NSW economy and has been put at risk because the
National Party have demanded that m...

12:20

My council asked for comments on their draft graffiti policy
and I thought it is a good start but would benefit from further
consideration

Fundamentally graffiti is more than "an element of youth culture,"
just look at what we know of ancient societies from the graffiti
messages that remain.

Obviously not all graffiti constitutes thoughtful communication and
the tagging that seems to have prompted the drafting of the policy
is a distinct issue.

However, a definition that recognises graffiti is illicit as well
as public is important in addressing the behaviour.

A definition for street art would, in turn, recognise a variety of
activities for legal expression by the community in public
spaces.

As a result, I think a separate public art policy should address
the availability of walls for designs and the community engagement
which will foster a sense of ownership for those spaces.

This public art policy could recognise a variety of media, from
non-destructive paste-ups (shown in pic) through to permanent
paint-based work or potentially extend into sculpture and other
installations?

It would also look broadly at resources within the community for
engagement and the promotion of art.

Furthermore, a broader discussion of public art would promote the
pathways available to develop skills and that such activity is not
limited to a youth demographic.

Promoting graffiti would be at odds with the criminal punishment
that activity.

Developing opportunities for the community to exhibit their designs
and other thoughtful communication through public art would be a
good outcome.

09:59

The only time I get called maam in my life is when
my bag is about to be tested for drugs.

I went willingly, a little annoyed. I have no drugs,
I have never had drugs, and I would never bring drugs on a plane.
Thats like wearing a Nazi costume to a dress-up party party: you
technically probably could do it, but its essentially best for
everyone if you refrain.

Arriving at Sydney and changing planes to go to
Canberra, I was stopped again.

Excuse me, maam, would you mind stepping over here
so that I can test you bags for explosives?

Holy shit! Dude, if there are explosives in my
bag, even I wanna know about it.

By the time I was stopped again at Sydney heading
back to Wellington a week later, I had had enough.

Maam, please step this way and read this card which
explains your rights, the big Australian official told me.

I didnt even read the card. I stood silently while
they checked my bag, knowing they wouldnt find anything. By the end
of the inspection, I was determined to get someone official who
knew me, like my mum, to write me a hand-written note saying that I
would always be drug-free on international flights. She could even
stamp it with a little Mum Approved stamp.

The first time this happened to me, I was twenty and
had landed in Vancouver.

Canadians are so nice, eh. Theyll be so good to
you, eh. They love their Kiwis eh.

I had all of those stereotypes swirling in my head
as I entered their arrival terminal full of large wooden Indigenous
art pieces, while I waited for my suitcase, and while I was
strolling away with my suitcase, about to enter the country that is
essentially New Zealand on steroids.

The lady took the tall slim declaration card, saw
the number that was scrawled on it, and indicated for me to walk
into a different queue, away from the stream of people heading out
the door.

That number should have been my first red flag. The
passport officer asked m...

08:22

Many of us enjoy taking a dip in backyard pools during
summer. Native animals also like to cool off, and often seek out
water on hot days.

Sadly wildlife and swimming pools dont always mix and during
extended periods of hot, dry weather WIRES takes many calls about
animals found in swimming pools. The bandicoot pictured here was
rescued from a backyard pool!

In another incident, an unusual visitor to a public pool prompted
swimmers to flee the pool. WIRES was called to remove a snake that
had decided to go for a morning swim!

While the pool was cleared, a trained WIRES reptile rescuer rushed
to the scene. Pools can be a trap for snakes causing them to swim
around to the point of exhaustion before drowning.

The snake was identified as a yellow-faced whip snake.
These are fast-moving, shy snakes that cause little harm. They are
mildly venomous with a bite like a bee-sting. Sadly their brownish
colour makes them easily misidentified as eastern brown
sankes.

The snake then fell into the skimmer trough around the
perimeter of the pool. The fast-flowing water was a certain
death-trap but rescuer Rowan had luckily already removed part of
the covering grid and was able to grab the snake when it reached
the pump-inlet grid. After an assessment and a rest the whip snake
was released into nearby bushland, tired but none the worse for its
ordeal.

WIRES has also rescued many birds, lizards, bandicoots and even
gliders that were found exhausted and waterlogged in pools across
the state. The animals frequently have to be brought into care and
monitored for possible water inhalation and pneumonia.

If you own a swimming pool there are some simple things
you can do to assist wildlife. Always drape something over the edge
of your pool so that animals have a surface to grab hold of and
climb out.

A length of heavy duty rope or even a bodyboard, secured at one end
to something heavy outside the pool, is ideal as it does not absorb
water and provides a platform for an exhausted animal to rest
on.

04:25

Back in November 2017 there were some 12,823
attached dwellings approved, but by November 2018 the equivalent
figure has collapsed 5,921, an impressive swan dive of 54 per
cent.

On the one hand, as you may recall, the prior year
figure was inflated by a record 6,512 unit approvals in Melbourne,
when half of Footscray was apparently approved for high-rise
apartment living.

On the other hand, this is no time for complacency
as even the apartment projects that are under construction
are increasingly stalling or at risk of failing.

The smoothed monthly trend figures show that house
approvals also declined virtually throughout 2018.

Furthermore, Sydney's unit approvals fell to a
multi-year low in November, all the way back down to levels
commensurate with under-building for the prevailing level of
population growth, sowing the seeds of the next cycle.

Annual unit approvals in Brisbane have fallen by
well over 50 per cent from their peak of three years earlier, and
are now tracking at the lowest level since 2013.

Even in Hobart - which has record job vacancies
and has experienced the tightest rental market imaginable - unit
approvals have been running at close to zero sine the Royal
Commission kicked off.

00:51

The W.A. cops are a rough lot so this is all highly believable.
Bashing Aborigines is their chief skill. The Rayney affair is
a huge scandal. All the police involved should be
dismissed

A man who was wrongly accused of killing his wife is calling for
'the injustice to end' and for investigators to find her
killer.

Barrister Lloyd Rayney was awarded more than $2.6 million in
damages against the Western Australian government last year in one
of the state's largest defamation payouts.

The payout came after he was publicly named by police as the prime
and only suspect in the death of his wife Corryn Rayney in August
2007.

Evidence has since come to light places two violent sexual
predators within just blocks of the Rayney's home at the time of
the murder.

Corryn Rayney, 44, went to a boot-scooting class on August 7, 2007
and never returned home. Her body was found days later in a sandy
grave in Perth's King's Park.

In an interview with 60Minutes, Mr Rayney said there were holes in
the investigation. 'It's now been 11 years, it's 11 long
years, and someone has literally gotten away with murder,' he said.
'Nothing gets better until her killer is prosecuted.'

Convicted rapist Ivan Eades lived in the same suburb as the Rayneys
and a cigarette butt covered in his DNA was found by police outside
their house on the day Corryn disappeared.

Eades' cousin, violent paedophile Allon Mitchell Lacco, lived
in an apartment near the Bentley Community Centre, where Ms Rayney
was last seen alive.

On the day that Ms Rayney disappeared, phone records show that
Lacco had allegedly used the phonebooth near the home.

When Lacco was pulled over by police the day after Ms Rayney's body
was found, police found sand in the boot of his car, as well as a
knife.

A year later investigators tracked Lacco in Sydney, where they
found a diary page for August 2007, the month Ms Rayney was killed,
with map of Kings Park and the floor plan of the supreme court -
where Ms Rayney was a registrar.

Lacco was interviewed by police but detectives did not take the
investigation any further.

A resident of an apartment block near Kings Park also reportedly
heard a loud scream from the park on the night Ms Rayney
disappeared. Police reportedly discounted the claim.

Police based their case on Mr Rayney on the idea that his wife had
been killed in their family home and driven in her body in her car
to the park.

But their daughter was home at the time he supposedly killed her
and their other daughter was expected home at any time.

Mr Rayney said the case made no sense but the public had formed the
opinion that he was guilty base...

EXCLUSIVE: The silly and dangerous clowns over at News Corp have
done it once again, this time forced to apologise to prominent
Sydney lawyer Adam Houda after the Daily Telegraph this week
published disgraceful lies he was the brother of a violent man
arrested for allegedly shooting another man in the foot at a
Western Sydney gym.

03:29

The end of the year is generally quieter for real
estate, but stock on market fell more sharply than expected last
month, especially in Sydney (-18 per cent) and Melbourne (-17 per
cent).

Figures elsewhere have also shown that the number
of new listings is at the lowest level in 8
years, suggesting that most owners are simply sitting out the
downturn, even if the total stock on market is higher due to slower
selling times.

Despite this listings are still more than 25 per
cent higher than a year earlier in Melbourne, so there are some
significant challenges there (in spite of the massive population
growth down that way).

Tuesday, 08 January

23:47

THE former Otford tennis clubhouse will be transformed into a
community hall by Wollongong City Council.

From a poorly used facility, the clubhouse will become a hub for
the Otford community, where people can get together for movie
nights, meetings and community dinners, organised by local
community groups and organisations.

Plans for the future of this facility highlight the approach of
Councils newly released community facilities strategy, Places for
People Wollongong Social Infrastructure Planning Framework:
2018-2028.

Places for People guides Councils planning for community,
cultural and recreational buildings at a number of levels from
planning for major projects through to smaller projects that aim to
enhance and activate existing assets, such as Otford Community
Hall.

Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said Councils Places for
People is a unique local government social infrastructure plan, in
that it recognises that community activities and community
infrastructure are inextricably linked.

Councils vision for social infrastructure is for people to have
access to quality, sustainable social infrastructure that meets
their needs and reflects Wollongongs role as a leading regional
city, he said.

18:32

Fate has brought us together for a reason, so I need
you to listen and take note. It is your call whether you want to
fuck up your life though.

*

My late teens left me in a state of constant wander
about what the universe had in store for me. Instead of following
my own intuition, I sought refuge in the words of those who claimed
to have all of the answers I needed to hear.

Instead of booking a trip overseas, my friend
Alexandria and I had settled on the hipster capital of Australia,
Melbourne. We planned to enjoy deconstructed coffee on wooden
chopping boards and glare at pieces of art that made us feel
something.

You can imagine my shock when, on our first
afternoon, Alexandria told me that we needed to venture back to our
hotel early in time to greet the psychic shed booked.

I know youre trying to steer clear of psychics right
now, Alexandria quipped, referencing my penchant for mysticism, but
our hotel is supposedly haunted, so I thought it would really be
setting the scene if she came to us.

As any good hostess does, I tidied the hotel room.
It didnt take me long; the space barely fit our two bodies and
accompanying suitcases. It occurred to me 15 minutes before the
psychic arrived that neither Alexandria nor I knew the etiquette of
hosting a psychic in a hotel room. We didnt want to overstep the
boundaries, but to be fair, she was about to rack Alexandrias
soul.

So, do you want me to leave while youre getting your
reading done? I might pop downstairs and grab a coffee? I suggested
to Alexandria, praying she wouldnt make me stay in the room with
her new spiritual confidant.

You have to stay. It will be too weird otherwise,
she exclaimed.

We met Star at the elevator and were taken aback
when she said she was in her late twenties. Her silver hair, deep
wrinkles and knitted beanie, sweater and socks suggested she may
have been slightly older. Once we rode up to the thirteenth floor,
Star perched a stick of lavender incense and a handful of crystals
on our TV stand to help her feel the vibe.

I tried to recall from the extensive research I had
done on psychics if they stereotypically lack a certain sense.
Common sense, that is. Within three seconds of Star lighting the
incense, our fire alarm set off a ringing in our ears. As I blew it
out, a nearby cleaner ran into our room to che...

15:04

Aslan Shand

Beautiful coastlines, no traffic jams, dirt roads and
that ephemeral character note that is slowly being beaten out of
Byron Shire and northern NSW still remains at Crescent Head in
Kempsey Shire and it is something that local residents think is
worth fighting for.

Rally

Locals are rallying together this Sunday January 13
at 8.30am to highlight their opposition to the tarring of Point
Plomer Road that takes people out to the headland at Limeburners
Creek National Park.

This is one of the last two places on the NSW coast
that has a dirt road leading to the headland, said Amy Bruce from
the Crescent Head Ratepayers and Residents Association (CHRRA).

Its incredibly beautiful, and so far
relatively unspoiled. Were worried that the developers are ready to
pounce.We see the tarring of the road as a
means of opening up the area for rezoning and
development.

While Council have assured residents that it will not
be changing the zoning CHRRA point out that Council have recently
changed the zoning within this area on one property to allow
increased subdivision.

Previously rejected

The tarring of the road was previously rejected in
2003 when the regions rich heritage and significant Aboriginal
sites were identified and residents and Indigenous elders are
saying that the council has made the decision to tar with no
consultation.

13:43

Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) is a reaction to commonly used
anaesthesia drugs where the body produces too much heat. If it is
not recognised and treated in its early stages, MH can lead to
death. The risk of developing MH is associated with a change in the
genes that are responsible for controlling the release of calcium
in muscle cells.

An MH reaction is a rare event, occurring in about one in every
ten thousand general anaesthetics. Probably at least one person in
every five thousand in the population is potentially
susceptible.

Triggering anaesthetics do not necessarily cause an MH crisis
every time someone at risk is given them. MH is hereditary; it is
passed on through the family. It affects males and females equally,
and can occur in every ethnicity. A person with MH has a 50% chance
of passing that risk on to each child that they have.

07:00

Weve spent the past four months travelling up and down the East
Coast and most days weve been near water; ocean, lakes, rivers and
swimming pools. With four kids to look after I have to stay
vigilant. And to be honest, its not always easy.

Right now, Ive got a curious 18-month-old who truly believes she
can swim. Ive got an ultra-cautious three-year-old who loves the
water but often prefers to play near it (a hazard in itself). And
then theres the big two whose confidence far outweighs their skill
set.

Despite many hours spent at swimming lessons over the past few
years, I know that I cant take my eyes off the pool for a second.
And its hard! Theres distractions a plenty; the phone being the
biggest culprit.

Royal Life Saving Society Australia recently released a new
report which has found that 965 children under the age of five have
died from drowning over the past 25 years.

Its a shocking reality and it really does frighten me. Its
frightens me because Ive witnessed the silence of a toddler falling
into a swimming pool and so I know, first hand, just how easily it
happens.

When we were in Bali in 2016 we were all sitting around the
villas swimming pool when Percy decided to grab his toy train from
the pavers. He was 18-months-old at the time, dressed in his
swimmers and simply reaching for a toy. I was about a metre from
him when he fell and dropped straight to the bottom of the pool. I
immediately jumped in and pulled him out and he was fine perfectly
fine. I, on the other hand, was shocked and scared.

It happened so quickly and so quietly. Ill never forget it.

...

06:49

It is school and work holidays and it is
lovely. The days have a real gentle rhythm. I am really enjoying my
time in the morning when it is just me, a cup of tea and some quiet
meditation. I would like to sleep in but it is not in my make up,
never has been.

The weekend was hot but there has been a slight reprieve the last
two day. Mid-thirties instead of 39 which doesn't sound like much
at all really. On sunny, hot Sunday I got out the sewing machine
and some vintage sheer fabric my great-uncle gave me. I made 8
produce bags of various sizes so when the garden isn't feeding us
then I'll be prepared. I'm hoping to give them a trial run soon and
then I can take some pictures of them in action. I've also been
stitching a few stitches each day on my cross stitch until the
evening light outside gets too low. Yarns are sorted for the big
crochet project so it can start in earnest now.

When I did my morning gardening yesterday I disturbed some
sort of conversation between these two noisy miners. They were
probably plotting how best to steal something from the garden.

I had company while I gardened. Happily said company was on the
other side of the fence. The sheep always get a few bits and
p...

Monday, 07 January

22:39

Victoria Police is one of the state's most corrupt organisations,
where the judicature has a vested interest at keeping that kind
information under wraps, under whatever pretext possible.

While the media today may report on cases like Lawyer X (or
Informer 3838), the true extent of Victoria Police's corruption is
deliberately kept from the public domain.

In any interactions with police where criminal offences (which
include driving offences) are alleged, Victoria Police cannot be
trusted, under any circumstances, where it would be of benefit to
the accused to have more than one witness and/or a recording device
which streams to the 'cloud' should police unlawfully confiscate
one's smartphone.

See article from The Sydney Morning Herald, published on the 7th of
October 2010 of the following headline:

'Crooked cops' book pulled

A BOOK that claims to reveal
significant corruption in the Victoria Police is being pulled from
Victorian bookshops.

The Office of Public Prosecutions threatened the publisher of the
book, written by former criminal lawyer Andrew Fraser who served
five years in jail for importing cocaine, with an injunction.

Acting DPP Gavin Silbert, SC, says Snouts in the Trough: A True
Story of the Underworld and the Brotherhood behind the Badge
reveals the identities of several people who are subject to
suppression orders in Victoria.

The book, which is the follow-up to Fraser's bestselling memoirs,
Court in the Middle and Lunatic Soup, claims to
reveal significant corruption in the Victorian police force. It
relies on the testimony of former detective sergeant Malcolm
Rosenes, the drug-squad officer who arrested Fraser and was himself
later jailed for trafficking drugs.

Fraser, who stressed he had not set out to break the law, told
The Age some of the suppression orders he was alleged to
have breached had been in place for ''an eternity''.

''They are not meant to last forever
One of the suppression orders I am alleged to have breached related
to someone who's dead.''

Julie Pinkham, managing director of Hardie Grant Books, the
publisher, said the company wo...

13:37

Ive been photographing families as I travel and its been an
absolute joy.

I know exactly how hard it is to organise a photographer, to get
your family ready for a photoshoot and feel confident and
comfortable enough to stand in front of a camera. I know that every
mother I photograph has spent hours preparing her family for my
arrival and for this reason alone its such a privilege to be there,
capturing moments that will become cherished memories.

I wholeheartedly believe that many mums dont have many photos
with their children and I love, more than anything, to capture the
deep, resounding love between mother and child.

In the next few weeks Ill be in Gippsland and Melbourne before
we head to Tasmania for 7 weeks. From mid-March onwards Ill be
Melbourne, Lakes Entrance, the NSW Sapphire Coast, country Victoria
and then South Australia. If you would like me to photograph your
family so you have photos of now, to keep forever, please get in
touch. Id love to meet you.

Sunday, 06 January

12:07

Can't unlock an Android phone? No problem,
just take a Skype call: App allows passcode bypass

Neat trick for spying spouses, bad bosses,
other miscreants with hands on your mobe. A fix is
available

A newly disclosed vulnerability in Skype for Android could be
exploited by miscreants to bypass an Android phone's passcode
screen to view photos, contacts, and even launch browser
windows.

Bug-hunter Florian Kunushevci today told The Register the
security flaw, which has been reported to Microsoft, allows the
person in possession of someone's phone to receive a Skype call,
answer it without unlocking the handset, and then view photos, look
up contacts, send a message, and open the browser by tapping links
in a sent message, all without ever unlocking the phone. This is
handy for thieves, pranksters, prying partners, and so on. Here's a
video demonstrating the bypass...

Kunushevci, a 19-year-old bug researcher from Kosovo, said he was
an everyday user of the Skype for Android app when he noticed that
something appeared to be amiss with the way the VoIP app accessed
files on the handset. Curious, he decided to put his white hat on,
and take a closer look.

"One day I got a feeling while using the app that there should be a
need to check a part which seems to give me other options than it
should," he explained. "Then I had to change the way of thinking as
a regular user into something that I can use for exploitation."

What he eventually found was that, once a Skype call has been
received and opened, the application functions as normal, allowing
features like photo-sharing and contact look-ups regardless of
whether the rest of the phone was unlocked.

Much like the various iOS flaws spotted over the years, the
bug is really down to a security oversight. In this case, the Skype
app allows users to access the photo and contact features without
first checking if the person using the device was
authenticated.

"For the speci...

06:24

I did join in with Cheryll's Friday Night
with Friends albeit briefly. Friday was very hot 39 and not
conducive to crafting or much of anything really. I had to water
the vegetable garden late in the day too to avoid the heat after
missing my opportunity in the morning.

I did some stitches on my long term work in progress that I will
valiantly try to finish this year. It may require a new set of
reading glasses but I'm determined. When that got too much, I made
some envelopes out of last year's calendars. I use those for my
sending penpal letters.

Not much done really but very nice to sit and stitch knowing I'm in
the company of friends. It has been too long since I have done
that.

I have my pattern now for the Sweet Pea crochet along so I know
what I'll be occupied with over the next while craft-wise.

08:26

1688 - Billy Boy Dampier waded ashore after seeing some Aboriginal
people walking there but, alas and alack, their BFF was not meant
to be as the Indigenous people weren't impressed with these chaps
and they left in a hurry.

1697 - Dutch navigator Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River
(Perth) Swartte Swaane Drift..or in English Swan River.
Vlamingh's second in command, Gerritt Collaert landed a party near
Cable Station Beach. They then strolled through dense bushland up a
coastal peak known as Buckland Hill. From this lofty perch Collaert
spotted a nearby river.
Which was populated with not the usual garden variety white swans
but BLACK swans. That put the wind up the lads so Willem took this
as an inspired sign from whoever and named the waterway Swan
River.

1798 - Victoria's Westernport Bay was tripped over by some white
fellers, and was named by George Bass.

1802 - Explorer Matthew Flinders eyeballed the Stirling Range.

1802 - Refusing to let Bass get the better of him, John Murray
named Port Phillip Bay. Then retired upon his laurels.

1819 - John Thomas Bigge was commissioned by Colonial Secretary
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl of Bathurst to inquire into conditions in
New South Wales and the administration of the colony.

1823 - Archibald Macarthur, who had become the first Presbyterian
Minister in Oz when he arrived the year before, held his first
service in a room of the government factory in Hobart Town today,
almost a month before the Presbyterian Church in Van Diemen's Land
was officially formed.

1825 - The first issue of Tasmanian and Port Dalrymple Advertiser,
Australias first provincial newspaper finally gave newsagents a
reason for being.

1833 - First issue of Perth Gazette, forerunner of todays West
Australian.

1837 - South Australia's first police officer, William Williams,
reported for duty on Kangaroo Island for 30 per year.And the poor
bugger hasn't seen a pay-rise for 50 years now!

1837 - Sir John Franklin arrived in Hobart, Tas, to take up his
appointment as Governor of Tasmania.

1841 - Joseph Orton, Wesleyan Methodist missionary, observed in
letters to the General Secreteries (the ordained ministers
responsible for Aboriginal Missions) on this day the destruction of
Indigenous food supplies and the violence between different
Aboriginal groups forced onto one anothers land by the Christian
Heathens who are enriching themselves on the spoil of the
dispossessed and wallowing in the blood of their victims.
To the last he championed the case of the Aboriginals, conferring
with the protectors, protesting against the travesties of justice
he witn...

Friday, 04 January

09:33

1688 - Billy Boy Sooki-La-La Dampi-Pants (better known in serious
history blogs as William Dampier) rocked up on the shore of King
Sound in Westralia and pronounced the Aboriginal People as,
"The miserablest people in the world."
Giving him the royal birdie down the tunnels of history is the fact
he's remembered best for his wankerish grasp of the English
language and that his pithy evaluation delayed the colonialisation
of Oz for a century.

1798 - The first land sale in Australia took place in the area now
known as Bankstown. And I bet they were getting blood from a
stone...just like today.

1802 - Lt John Murray was a bright lad, a chap who knew his onions
and used his God-given grey matter between his ears so he knew
exactly what he was eyeballing when he was at the opening to Port
Phillip Bay.....
...no, Snodgrass, it wasn't the secret door to Narnia....wrong,
Cedric Longbottom, it was not the hidden back passage to your
fathers wine cellar....yes, finally, Crispin, you pulled your
finger out of the dyke (sorry, Ma'am) and got a leg over in
class!
It was, in fact, the entrance to Port Phillip Bay he'd found.

1804 - Lieut-Col. David Collins examined the site of Launceston,
but, being a picky bugger, he decided to continue on to the River
Derwent.

1808 - Not a great day for Lieutenant John Putland, son-in-law of
Governor Bligh, who died on this day of tuberculosis at Government
House and was buried in the grounds of Government House.
Then he got shifted all over the shop; next he was buried in a
vault at old St Phillip's on Church Hill, but later relocated to
Town Hall burial ground, then later relocated to St Stephens
(headstone remains in present St Phillip's). Mary Putland had
intended to have the body sent back to England, but was prevented
by the outbreak of the rebellion.

1810 - Today saw Gov Lachlan Macquarie stamp his foot and get
Roolly Cross with those naughty mischievous monkeys playing at the
Rum Rebellion in the NSW Corps who had deposed Macquarie's
predecessor poor old Gov Bligh; Lachlan cancelled all the land
grants, bequests and trials, then dismissed all the trouble makers
from authority.
He was cleaning out his closet.

1812 - They were all cock-a-hoop at the Notice of arrival of the
ship Speedwell at Sydney filled to the gunwales with Shoalhaven
cedar.

1814 - Things were looking up for Thomas West when he received a
conditional pardon today in consideration of his general good
conduct and character for sobriety and industry and in having
erected a water mill for the grinding of grain at Barcom Glen
within two miles of Sydney, being the first water-mill ever erected
in the vicinity of Sydney.

1815 - The Frances and Eliza, en route to Australia with 123
convicts, were captured by US pr...

Thursday, 03 January

19:40

Traders point to a jump in activity on
Japanese retail trading platforms, poor liquidity elsewhere in the
market, and fragility of investor sentiment

.

By Mike
Bird and Ira Iosebashvili
The Wall Street Journal

Updated Jan. 3, 2019 3:20 a.m. ET

.

Currency markets were thrown into a spasm early in Asia on
Thursday, with the Japanese yen surging during less-than-liquid
trading hours, following weeks in which market sentiment has
soured.

The U.S. dollar fell by as much as 3.7% against the yen,
immediately following a
weaker-than-expected sales forecast from Apple Inc. that
was issued after U.S. markets closed. The currency retraced much of
its move in later trading, and was recently down 1.1% against the
yen at 107.63 as European markets opened.

Traders pointed to a significant jump in currency trading
volumes on Japanese retail trading platforms, poor liquidity
elsewhere in the market, and the fragility of investor sentiment
after a bleak and volatile end to 2018 as key factors behind the
market moves.

Theres very thin liquidity, said Michael Turner, currency
strategist at RBC Capital Markets, based in Sydney. It seems like
everyones taking any cues to sell whatever they can.

The Apple result being poor, can you really blame that? he
added, In ordinary times, people wouldnt bother with a theory like
that, but in this sort of skittish environment anything can
happen.

The yen tends to be popular as a so-called haven currency during
times of economic or political turmoil. Japanese investors often
repatriate overseas investments during weak market periods, driving
up the value of the yen.

Other currencies were hit during Thursdays sharp repricing. The
British pound was down 0.4% against the U.S. dollar at $1.255,
while the Australian dollara common barometer of risk
appetitedropped 0.3% to $0.696.

Friday, 09 November

18:44

We are pleased to announce
that on Wednesday 21 November 2018, EJA will be releasing a report
we commissioned into the health burden from air pollution
due to electricity generation in NSW.

This is the first report of its kind in Australia, despite decades
of pollution belching from coal-fired power stations
throughout Australia. The report has implications for millions
of Australians.

Be one of the first to
hear about the findings direct from the author, Dr Ben Ewald an
epidemiologist. During November, Dr Ewald will address a
series of public forums in NSW. For details and to confirm
youre coming, click on the links below.